CARDINAL BEMBO AND HIS VILLA 



" Cur valle permutem Sabina Divitias operosiores ? " 



HORACE. 



PIETRO BEMBO was a typical Italian humanist. His 

 whole life was governed by two ruling passions the 

 love of letters and of natural beauty. He was ambi- 

 tious and greedy of gain, never tired of accumulating 

 lucrative posts and rich benefices, but wealth and 

 dignities in his eyes were only means to the end in 

 view, steps in the ladder to the attainment of that 

 blessed leisure which was the most desirable thing on 

 earth. So he undertook hard and distasteful work, 

 and toiled in law-courts and offices, that he might gain 

 the power to be idle and to enjoy Nature and his 

 beloved books in undisturbed peace. And since the 

 only way in which a poor scholar could obtain inde- 

 pendence and freedom from care was by entering the 

 service of some noble patron, he went to the Court of 

 Urbino with only forty ducats in his pocket, and, in 

 spite of the remonstrances of his relatives and friends, 

 remained there several years. "Let them say what 

 they choose," he wrote to his brother at Venice, " they 

 are fools who think themselves wise and imagine that 

 135 



